SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: January 2022] Feet of Clay
The Watch is back. This story doesn’t exactly introduce Golems to the city of Ankh-Morpork. They’ve always been there. But this is the first time they have become a big deal.
Also a big deal? Sam Vimes. Now that Vimes has become a Lord, it’s about time he gets a crest. So he goes to the local keeper of the Register of Proper People: Dragon King of Arms, to see about his old family crest.
Except, as Dragon King of Arms is quick to point out, his ancestor was a regicide and they tend to frown on that sort of thing. So it turns out that one of Vimes ancestor’s
But while Vimes is denied a crest, he is informed that his co-worker, Nobby Nobbs is actually from a learned and proper family (but Nobby is barely human!), still, there is fanciness in his blood. He is descended from the Earl of Ankh.
Nobby is not too happy about being upper crust and spends much of the book bemoaning that he can be upper class and have no money. When Society calls on him to come visit, he is woefully out of place and the whole dinner party is a hilarious feast for the reader.
This, it turns out, may have something to do with the poisoning of Lord Vetenari. He’s not dead. In fact, he seems to be doing okay–until the next day when he seems poisoned again. Vimes is at a a loss. How can he be poisoned regularly and steadily with no one noticing. It will takes some of his best police work to figure this out.
But, as seems to happen a lot in Ankh-Morpork, there are a lot of people who would happily see Lord Vetinari not be in power anymore. Of course, if there were a power imbalance, the Guilds would have to fight each other to be in charge. And honestly, none of them really want to be in charge of the city, they just want Vetinari out. Maybe if they had a king? (Yes, that idea again–but done very differently here). Nobby would probably be an easily manipulated ruler. Just sayin….
But what of these golems? So golems are creations–roughly human-shaped clay beings who are given instructions in their head and are brought to life by a priest. They do only what is written on the paper. They never stop working. They are essentially machines. But the creep everyone out! Even Angua is freaked out by them. And yet, they have never hurt anyone.
Until now. A Priest and a Dwarf breadmaker were killed by a golem. And now the entire city is out to get the golems. The Watch is on it–and Carrot is there to make sure everything is done fairly.
Feet of Clay also introduces the funniest-named character so far: a dwarf named Cheery Littlebottom. Cheery is a forensics expert and becomes very useful to Vimes (who manages not even to snicker at this name). Cheery and Angua hit it off even though Cheery hates werewolves (a werewolf killed someone in the family). Of course, Angua doesn’t reveal her true nature until much later. But then neither does Cheery.
With everyone mad at the golems, there is danger everywhere–mobs forming and such. Even the golems seem upset (but can they feel anything?). Eventually a golem, Dorfl, confesses to the murders, even though it is very clear that he could not have done them.
This one of those great Discworld stories where several threads are active at once and Pratchett interweaves them with great skill. And of course, he gets to make a lot of good points about humanity, nobility and decency while he’s at it.
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